Girls and Computers

After a week that seemed just chock full of people being stupid about women in technology, I just found myself thinking back on how it was that I ended up doing this whole computer thing in the first place. I recorded a video a while back for the High Visibility Project, but that really just told the story of how I ended up doing web development. The story of how I got into computers begain when I was unequivocally a girl. It was 1982.

Back then, my dad made eyeglasses. My mom stayed at home with me and my year-old sister – which she’d continue to do til I was a teenager, when my brother finally entered kindergarten eight years later. Their mortgage was $79 – about $190 in today’s dollars – which is a good thing because my dad made about $13,000 a year. We lived in Weedsport, New York, a small town just outside of Syracuse. We walked to the post office to get our mail. The farmers who lived just outside town were the rich people. In the winters the fire department filled a small depression behind the elementary school with water for a tiny skating rink. There were dish-to-pass suppers in the gym at church.